House of Lords: Review of Working Practices

Baroness Amos: The House will wish to know how it is proposed to review the package of changes to working practices agreed by the House in July 2002, on the basis of the Procedure Committee's fifth report of 2001–02. Unless the House takes further decisions, the changes will expire at the end of this Session. Following discussion through the usual channels and at the Procedure Committee, I intend that the review should begin with another Leader's Group, composed as follows:
	B Amos (Chair) L Brooke of Alverthorpe L Cope of Berkeley L Craig of Radley L Grocott L Roper L Strathclyde L Waddington B Williams of Crosby L Williamson of Horton
	The group's remit will be to review the procedural changes agreed by the House in July 2002 and to make recommendations to the Procedure Committee for their retention, modification or reversal, with any associated changes. The review will include September sitting, but not the terms of reference of the Statutory Instruments Merits Committee (because these are to be reviewed separately after the first year), nor matters relating to the Speakership of the House.
	The proposed timetable is:
	Group report by 16 September
	Procedure Committee consider and report by end October
	Debate in November
	Any changes to take effect at start of next Session

Rivers Agency: Key Performance Targets 2004–05

Baroness Amos: My right honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State has made the following ministerial Statement.
	Rivers Agency is an Executive Agency of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland. It acts on behalf of the Department as the statutory drainage and flood defence authority for Northern Ireland.
	I have set the following key targets for the agency for the 2004–05 business year:
	
		
			   
			 Urban Flood Defences: To construct or refurbish 612 metres of urban flood defences. 
			 Drainage Infrastructure: To accommodate increased storm run-off from 91 hectares of development land.To replace/refurbish 653 metres of dangerous culverts. 
			 Maintenance Watercourses: To complete identified maintenance works on 1,235 of the 1,585 designated open watercourses included in the notice of annual maintenance as part of a six-year scheduled maintenance programme. 
			 Replies to written inquiries: To issue substantive replies to 80 per cent of written enquiries within 15 working days of receipt. 
			 Schedule 6 applications: To respond to 98 per cent of Schedule 6 applications within three months.

Queen's Counsel

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I have been considering the outcome of the consultation on the future of Queen's Counsel in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland. In July 2003 I published a consultation paper on the future of Queen's Counsel; 376 responses were received. I published a summary of these responses on 26 January 2004.
	Whilst the consultation did not produce a consensus as to whether the title of Queen's Counsel should continue to exist, it is clear to me that as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State I should no longer play a part in assessing and selecting candidates to be appointed as QCs. None of the consultees could demonstrate that such involvement in the selection process is fundamental to the Silk mark's value; nor does it add value for consumers of legal services. I will, therefore, not continue that role.
	Yet respondents from within the legal services market were equally clear about the value of maintaining a kitemark for advocacy services—both to recognise excellence and to provide useful information for consumers. For this reason, the Government have invited the Bar Council and the Law Society, and their counterparts In Northern Ireland, to develop and implement new schemes for accrediting leading advocates, which will replace the existing arrangements. The professions are far better placed to fulfil this function than the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. I do have a responsibility, however, for ensuring that the resultant scheme is fair and in the interests of the public and the consumers of legal services.
	My intention is to work with the professions to ensure that the replacement schemes meet as many as possible of the objections that have been raised over the Silk appointments process. Kitemarking must be designed to serve the interests of consumers by identifying genuine excellence. It must provide fairness for members of the professions. I would also want it to encourage diversity within the professions, with a continually widening range of backgrounds and experience represented amongst those the professions recognise as leaders in advocacy. I have every confidence that the professions can deliver this aim. To achieve these goals, there must be rigorous selection against clearly defined objective criteria. There must also be provision for the kitemark to be removed where the holder has failed to meet the high standards required. The professional bodies have agreed to work together to achieve a single scheme for both branches of the profession and are already collaborating with each other and my department in working out the details of a joint approach to reform. I will set out these plans in a further Statement.
	The professions will be responsible for selection and will send a list of suitable candidates to the DCA. I will retain responsibility for recommending as a Minister to Her Majesty that she appoint those on the list to the rank of Queen's Counsel. I will of course need to satisfy myself that the interim scheme meets the goals I have set for it, and consider whether the professions' recommendations are consistent with its terms and whether I should depart from them in exceptional circumstances.
	The new arrangements should be ready to receive the first applications towards the end of this year. They will ensure, as the great majority of those who responded to the consultation asked, that there will continue to be effective arrangements for recognising advocacy of outstanding quality in the higher courts. At the same time, those arrangements will have particular regard to the need for a competitive market.
	The consultation process also demonstrated the need for a wider review not just of kitemarking but of the information available to consumers in relation to the whole spectrum of legal services. That review will seek to establish what shortfalls there are in the information available, and what solutions can be implemented to serve better the interests of the consumer. An important part of this process will be establishing what types of accreditation scheme might be beneficial and how they should be set up and administered. The evaluation will not be restricted to advocacy alone, but will cover all fields of legal practice in which there is a need for better consumer information. It will be based on the principles that we are already establishing for the advocacy scheme—fairness, diversity, and a stronger focus on consumer interests. In particular, it will take full account of the wider context of competition law and the free market. While we carry out this longer-term market study, we will be careful to keep the work consistent with the review of the regulation of legal services that Sir David Clementi is conducting. If the conclusion of the market study is that new ways are required to meet consumers' information needs, one of the essential questions will be who will best be able to meet these needs. That will have to be decided in the light of the presentation of Sir David's conclusions which are due at the end of this year. Because of this linkage, and if any legislation is needed to implement the results of the market study, the Government expect that any scheme would be implemented at the same time as the conclusions on the wider review.
	The reformed kitemark for higher court advocacy is an interim measure. We have adopted it to provide continuity and to maintain the advantages that the consultation process has identified—in the international market, for example. It will be reviewed when the results of the long-term market study are available, to confirm first whether legal services customers need it, and—if they do—that it is still compatible with the principles that will be established in the study.
	The interim scheme will retain the title of QC. The use of the QC title will be reviewed along with the other details of the scheme once the market study is complete. But I stress that although the title will not be changed in the interim scheme, the substance of the award will be different since it will be based on improved criteria and selection processes.
	The interim solution does not aim to remove the title of QC from existing holders. We are looking for ways to improve the current system and at the wider picture. It makes sense to consider what, if anything, to do about the current titleholders only when that process is complete.
	This decision affects only the jurisdictions for which I have responsibility: England and Wales, and Northern Ireland. It does not affect the position in Scotland, or the Crown Dependencies, or any of the overseas territories or Commonwealth countries where the rank of Queen's Counsel is in use.

National Minimum Wage

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment Relations, Competition and Consumers, Gerry Sutcliffe, has made the following Statement.
	The Government have placed in the Libraries of the House the latest tables showing the estimated number of workers who have benefited directly from the national minimum wage between its introduction and the next uprating in October 2004. Members of Parliament wishing to know the number of beneficiaries in each area of the UK over this period are advised to consult this information. The information can also be found on the Department of Trade and Industry's website at www.dti.gov.uk/er/emar. The information will be updated every six months to take account of future increases to minimum wage rates and the release of new data from the Office for National Statistics.
	I am also attaching below a regional breakdown of the number of people who are expected to receive a pay rise as a direct result of the forthcoming increase in minimum wage rates in October 2004.
	
		Number of jobs that stand to benefit from the forthcoming October 2004 NMW uprating by region
		
			   
			 North East 110,000–120,000 
			 North West 210,000–240,000 
			 Yorkshire and Humberside 180,000–210,000 
			 East Midlands 150,000–180.000 
			 West Midlands 150,000–190,000 
			 Eastern 130,000–160,000 
			 London 80,000–100,000 
			 South East 150,000–170,000 
			 South West 140,000–170,000 
			 Wales 90,000–110,000 
			 Scotland 160,000–190,000 
			 Northern Ireland 40,000–50,000 
			 UK 1,600,000–1,900,000 
		
	
	:TITLE3:Source:
	Note: These data are based on 10p pay bands from the ONS central estimates and take account of earnings and prices inflation between the period Spring 2003 and October 2004; uprating from £3.80 to £4.10 for 18–21 year olds and from £4.50 to £4.85 for those 22 and over.
	The DTI and the ONS do not possess any information on the number of workers who have benefited from the national minimum wage by constituency.

Company Law: Flexibility and Accessibility

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Patricia Hewitt, has made the following Statement.
	I am today publishing a consultation document, Company Law: Flexibility and Accessibility, containing proposals designed to help ensure that company law remains up to date in future, and to make it clearer and more easily accessible in particular for smaller firms.
	The proposals are for the introduction of new types of legislative power enabling company law in future to be amended by a special form of secondary legislation, making it easier to keep the legislation updated over time. The powers would also be used to rewrite relevant parts of the law to make it simpler to understand for all its users, particularly smaller firms and their advisers.
	The use of the powers would be governed by stringent requirements for public consultation and for parliamentary scrutiny, and by criteria which would ensure that the needs of smaller users were at the heart of any reform proposals. Over time, I would look forward to being able to bring all the key operational provisions relating to smaller private companies together, clearly and logically, in one place.
	The powers would be introduced as part of the major new Companies Bill which we are preparing for introduction as soon as parliamentary time allows. The Bill will implement the work of the independent company law review, which provided an authoritative assessment of the guiding principles for future reform, and my proposals proceed very much in that spirit.
	The consultation period will close on 24 September 2004 to allow full time for consideration of these important proposals, and I have placed copies of the consultation document in the Libraries of both Houses.